“Let us suppose a case as conditions now exist.  Assume, for the sake of argument, that you loved me and that you plucked from your nature your religion, your fidelity to your house, your love for your brother, and gave yourself to me.  You would stand appalled at the sacrifice until you realized that you had come to me only because it would have been more difficult to stay away.  You conquer the passionate cry of love,—­the strongest the human compound has ever voiced,—­and you are miserably happy for the rest of your life no attitude being so pleasing to the soul as the attitude of martyrdom.  Many a man and woman looks with some impatience for the last good-bye to be said, so sweet is the prospect of sadness, of suffering, of resignation.”

I was aghast at his audacity, but I saw that Chonita was fascinated.  Her egotism was caressed, and her womanhood thrilled.  “Are we all such shams as that?” was what she said.  “You make me despise myself.”

“Not yourself, but a great structure—­of which you are but a grain—­with a faulty foundation.  Don’t despise yourself.  Curse the builders who shoveled those stones together.”

He left her then, and she told me to go to bed; she wanted to sit a while and think.

“He makes you think too much,” I said.  “Better forget what he says as soon as you can.  He is a very disturbing influence.”

But she made me no reply, and sat there staring at the floor.  She began to feel a sense of helplessness, like a creature caught in a net.  It was more the man’s personality than his words which made her feel as if he were pouring himself throughout her, taking possession of brain and every sense, as though he were a sort of intellectual drug.

“I believe I was made from his rib,” she thought, angrily, “else why can he have this extraordinary power over me?  I do not love him.  I have read somewhat of love, and seen more.  This is different, quite.  I only feel that there is something in him that I want.  Sometimes I feel that I must dig my nails into him and tear him apart until I find what I want,—­something that belongs to me.  Sometimes it is as if he promised it, at others as if he were unconscious of its existence; always it is evanescent.  Is he going to make my mind his own?—­and yet he always seems to leave mine free.  He has never snubbed me.  He makes me think:  there is the danger.”

An hour later there was a tap on her door.  Casa Grande was asleep.  She sat upright, her heart beating rapidly.  Estenega was audacious enough for anything.  But it was her brother who entered.

“Reinaldo!” she exclaimed, horrified to feel an unmistakable stab of disappointment.

“Yes, it is I. Art thou alone?”

“Sure.”

“I have something to say to thee.”

He drew a chair close to her and sat down “Thou knowest, my sister,” he began, haltingly, “how I hate the house of Estenega.  My hatred is as loyal as thine:  every drop of blood in my veins is true to the honor of the house of Iturbi y Moncada.  But, my sister, is it not so that one can sacrifice himself, his mere personal feelings, upon the altar of his country?  Is it not so, my sister?”